Technicolor Geek Chic
by GuileandGall
Summary: A collection of shorts, drabbles, and oneshots based on my OC-Tala Darzi-for the Saints Row RPG set up by CelesteEnnui
1. Coming To

**Coming To**

She still wasn't sure what was going on. After waking up covered in something sticky and foul, surrounded by strangers, things just kept getting weirder. Most of it still didn't make all that much sense. Her teeth tugged at the thin ring in her bottom lip as she glanced around the room. There were a lot of them, this 3rd Unit; they all seemed nice enough so far.

Two of them, Claire and Nero, kept stopping by asking her if she was all right. She always said yes. But even so, they asked the same questions, like they were working off a script: do you remember my name? What have you eaten in the last 24 hours? How did you sleep? Do you remember how you got here?

The answer to that one was always the same. No. Strangely, they never asked her her name; of course, Nero announced that after she finished coughing up crud. "Tala Darzi. Twenty-one-year-old, American. Blood Type Oh-positive."

Her teeth shifted to the other side of her lip, where she could bite a little harder. She stared at what a few days earlier had been small hole in the knee of her jeans. It looked better this way, gaping and shredded.

 _Tala Darzi_ , she thought again, wondering if it was really her name. It could just be something someone made up or read off a soup can. _But why? Why give her some weird name then tell her Earth was gone and they were in outer space?_ This all sounded like the plot of a bad sci-fi novel, and she was pretty sure it might be bullshit, but then she couldn't be sure if that was even her own name, so what the hell did she know?

Her teeth ground against one another, eyes stinging. Hell, she didn't even know what upset her this time, but she huddled back into the oversized chair she'd confiscated and pulled the borrowed hoodie a little farther forward. The shadows at the perimeter of the room, on the fringe, felt more comfortable, safer. Being in the middle of all those people made her palms sweat and her heart race. They were all so close and she didn't know how to break into that, but she wanted to.

"Keep dreaming, Jonah," Lorcán warned, bumping the other man's shoulder with his own.

"Watch it. Besides it's not like you were a gold farmer before all this," Jonah crooned. "And," he drew out, "Yeah!" The triumph shone clearly in his grin.

Laughter from the women playing cards at the table rang out, muffling Lorcán's growl. Plastic chips clinked against the wood of the table.

"I raise. Forty," Mel declared with a confident air.

The man across the table from her barely even spared her a glance as he quickly counted out the chips. "Call." He leaned forward, his voice dripping with an intense seductiveness. "Let's have it, then. On the table."

Mel's lips curled into a quirky grin and she laid her cards out in a neat fan. "Four queens."

"Damnit," Byron replied, slapping his full house down on the wood.

When Lena raised her hand, Mel slapped it without even looking.

"Card sharks. The both of you."

"You gonna deal or bitch?" Lena chimed, sitting forward again for the next hand.

Byron just gave her a look as he shuffled the cards.

When the "purring" rose in volume, the young woman's attention shifted toward the great beast who lolled onto his side. His head overtook most of Blu's lap while the unit leader scratched his ears. Billy looked scary, like he could gobble her up and ask for seconds, but he seemed very much like a puppy-playful and cuddly. At his huffed trumpet, the outsider startled.

No matter how much she wanted to trash talk with the boys or see if Billy knew how to play fetch, something anchored her to that chair in the back corner of the room. It was darker, safer. She hooked a thread of cotton around her finger. It bit into her flesh as she ripped it free from the growing hole over her knee. Over the day spent picking at the tear, her fingers grew raw, bleeding just a little. Her dark clothes, the chair, and the floor all bore scraps of the whitish blue threads and fuzzies.

The hollow sound of heels echoed off the walls. She straightened, recognizing the measured rhythm of Claire's long stride, it sounded like the metronomic swish of her hips. In the chair, the young woman moved quickly, sitting up a little straighter as she swiped the back of the sweatshirt's sleeves over her face. Both hands then pulled back into her sleeves and tucked tightly into her lap as the tall blond approached … again.

The medic traded greetings with several of the others as she crossed the common room.

"Hi, Tala! How are you feeling?" she asked as she perched on the edge of the nearby table, crossing her long legs.

"Fine, Claire" she grumbled, stating the woman's name clearly in an effort to shorten the Q & A session.

Her eyes darted around the room before returning to the doctor. She felt exposed, singled out … like an outcast. It bubbled up again, and she tried to swallow it back once more. Then Claire went all hazy in her vision before the rest of the questions even started.

She just wanted it to be over and done. So, in a voice barely above a whisper, she listed off the answers to the other questions without prompting. "I slept five hours. No, I don't remember what happened, and I just had an apple and peanut butter. Yogurt for breakfast. Whatever that vegetable pasta thing was last night. I can keep going if you like?"

She only held Claire's gaze because she feared that looking down might just ensure everyone getting to see the freak cry. She didn't want that more than she wanted to disappear inside her hoodie.

Claire's hand on her arm threatened to do just that. It felt so familiar, that gentle touch with just a hint of reassurance in the squeeze. "Why don't you tell me what _you_ 'd like, Tala?"

Her chest tightened again, and her breath came quicker, but she didn't answer. Though she thought about it a long time. Claire gave her arm another squeeze, a soft rub, then a pat. When Claire stood up to leave, an answer came to her. "A computer, or a book. Maybe both?" she asked, looking up at her.

The desire overwhelmed her and she was nearly certain Claire saw the tears harboring in the corners of her eyes before she dropped her face to stare at her balled up hands.

Claire's hand laid on her shoulder again, solid and strong, almost emphasizing her words. "I'll see what I can do, honey."


	2. Epiphanic Moments

**Epiphanic Moments**

"What are you doing?" he asked when their kiss broke.

"Just ... hold that thought," she suggested stretching and grabbing her laptop, which she opened and propped on his tummy.

He draped a hand above his head. "Seriously?"

"I just ..." Her eyes are on the screen as she pulls up the code she'd been working. Her gaze darted to his exasperated face. "I had an epiphany," she explained. SHe gave him that sweet, _please be patient with me_ look before her attention shifted back to the screen.

His fingertips traced the line of her calf to the tune of her fingers racing across the keyboard. She was always a fast typer, but this sounded like she was actually rushing. The idea made him grin.

"There!" with her proclamation the laptop snapped closed and she lightly tossed it on the other side of the bed. In an instant her hands were on his face again, her lips on his.

"So, should I take it as a compliment that making out with me can spark genius?" he asked between kisses.

She leaned up enough to look down at him. He could see her smile sparkling in her hypnotic eyes.

"Of course, you can," she answered.

He understood the subtext of her answer, but didn't care. His hand swept up her thigh and over her hip. Gripping her rear, he pulled her body against his as his hips wriggled. When she gasped, he grinned and kissed her harder. He'd lay claim to that little epiphany, even if she refused to say it had anything to do with him, or them, or the way he kissed her.

Maybe he could spark another, he thought for a second, until she sat back and pulled her tee shirt off. _No, better not_ , he told himself. The last thing he wanted was that scene to replay mid-stroke.


	3. Thick as Thieves

**Summary:** An overheard chat pulls Tala out of her jean shredding.

 **a/n:** Another character development fiction for my SR RPG OC.

 **Thick as Thieves**

She had noticed the connection between Lorcán and Jonah right off the bat. The way they laughed and carried on, always elbowing and shoving each other—it reminded her of … well, she didn't know who exactly, but it seemed familiar in a way that was somehow both comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time.

For some reason, every time she left the common room when she came back her favorite chair was farther from the wall. Why? She couldn't decide, but she never moved it back, though she continued shredding the pairs of jeans she got. This time slipping a fork into her pocket to make it a little easier to start another tear.

A fierce debate in whispers broke out on the sofa, which she was now close enough to over here bits and pieces of the plan for some mischief.

"C'mon it will be hilarious," Jonah explained, keeping his gestures small.

Lorcán looked skeptical. While the corners of her mouth ticked upward at the mention of a prank.

"We just grab something useful but not vital and leave ransom notes. It's flawless."

His friend still seemed on the fence.

"A quick in and out. No one's gonna know." Jonah stared at Lorcán for a long time, his face kind of twitching like he thought facial gestures might complete the job of convincing him.

"Fine," Lorcán relented. "What's the plan?"

Her jeans were far less interesting than they had been moments ago, and for what seemed like the first time since put it on, she pushed her hood back.

"I figure we start with Claire."

"Right. There's never anyone in medical right after dinner," Lorcán said.

"Yeah. They're all kicking back, digesting," Jonah agreed.

Lorcán nodded. "Should be able to slip in and grab … something."

"Okay. Then we do it tonight?"

 _The plan is flawed_ , she thought. "You're going to get caught," she said with a faint huff of laughter.

Two heads turned toward her, eyes narrowing. "Keep your voice down," Lorcán hissed.

"Fine," she whispered back, "but it doesn't change the fact that plan is guaranteed to get you in trouble … again." She'd seen enough over the past few days to notice a trend.

Jonah looked skeptical. "How ya figure?"

"If you—"

"Shh." Lorcán and Jonah both turned and tried to look innocent.

As she passed through the room, Blu stared at the three of them in a way that made Tala's heart pound off her rib cage. _What the hell are you thinking?_ she asked herself, as her jade eyes tracked the woman's path through a door, which closed behind her.

In an instant, the boys turned expectant looks on her again, but she felt like she'd lost the ability to talk.

"Come on," Jonah prodded.

"It's just that, if you go in—"

Another shushing, as Val and Byron strolled through in deep debate about the iconography of Versace.

"What message are they trying to send?" the Italian asked with complete seriousness as the pair took a seat at a table on the opposite side of the room.

"The craftsmanship is flawless," Byron argued.

"Of course," Val stated with clear confidence in that aspect of the brand. "It was made in Italy. But why a gorgon's head?"

Tala stared after the two well-kempt men as they crossed the room to a table far from the would-be pranksters. _Really?_ she asked herself, wondering for a moment how that conversation even started. With a shake of her head, her eyes returned to the couch in time to see Jonah prod Lorcán to move over before gesticulating at her. Teeth tugging at her lip ring she took a moment to consider it first.

"What? Forgot what we were talking about already?" Jonah teased with a boyish grin.

She glared at him, then moved, hopping over the back of the sofa and plopping into the spot between them. The proximity allowed her to keep her voice even quieter than before. "How many cameras are in medical? Or between here and there?" she asked looking from one to the other of them.

Lorcán merely raised his brow, while Jonah started to say something then stopped.

"Right. And if everyone else is in here digesting and you two are the only ones elsewhere, who do you think they'll peg as the kidnappers?"

"Well, you can't really kidnap a tablet," Lorcán offered in a reasonable tone.

"Depends on who you ask," she replied. "I'd certainly call it that if you nicked mine."

"Good to know," he said quietly.

"You got a better idea?" Jonah inquired, his tone oozing with a hint of grump.

Tala considered it a moment, then she presented them with an alternate and incredibly brilliant suggestion.

"Go old school," she said finally. "There's a communal bathroom, right?" A smirk curled over her lips as she looked between them. "There's a reason the classics are classic. _And_ no cameras."

"Yeah. But if we're in there for an hour, they'll be able to see it on the cameras," Lorcán replied.

With a shake of her head, Tala explained, "You don't do it all at once. There's two of you. One goes in and pops some bouillon in a shower head, then pop into a stall, flush, and wash your hands. Come back out. The next goes in later. Maybe you cover a toilet seat in plastic wrap," she said, looking at Jonah. Rinse and repeat." She smiled smugly as she sat back and crossed her arms over her chest.

"That couldn't possibly work," Lorcán said.

"Can and will. I mean you're welcome to use that tired old plan. And end up bathing Billy again, or flossing his teeth, or giving him a manicure, once you get caught."

"That's a valid point," Jonah noted.

Lorcán still looked skeptical.

She turned her head and looked him in the eye. "Just make sure you keep a little map so you know which ones you've rigged. Pranking yourself would be completely fail."

"Says the Little Mermaid picking at her jeans with a fork."

"She used it as a comb, genius." Tala gave him an exasperated look. "Fine. Go get caught," she said in a normal volume for the first time since climbing onto the couch.

"Scusami?" Val piped up from across the room.

The question from across the room startled Tala. She stood quickly, turning just slightly.

"Nothing," Lorcán chimed. He turned and gave her a sharp look, which she returned with confidence and just a hint of smugness.

Val did not look convinced in the slightest. Jonah leaned on the back of the sofa almost too casually and said, "Oh, she's probably just confused again. Or maybe remembering something." He swatted Lorcán's leg out of the others' view.

Tala's shoulders hunched forward when Byron glanced at her. Despite the fact that he only looked mildly concerned, her cheeks still warmed. Val and Byron were both lovely, and smooth talkers, and in this case, lookers. Her eyes dropped to her hands, which she pulled back inside her sleeves.

Lorcán fell right into step, easing off the sofa. "Yeah. We should probably escort her to medical."

"Nero's there, right?" Jonah asked, getting to his feet as well.

"Likely," Byron said.

To Tala's ears, he sounded suspicious. But Lorcán's hand on one shoulder turned her toward the doorway. Jonah's hand pressed at her other shoulder to encourage her through it.

"Cool. Don't let us interrupt," Lorcán added over his shoulder. Once around the corner, he stopped and looked her in the eyes again. "Are you trying to get us killed?"

"No, you're more than capable of managing that on your own from what I've seen," she retorted in an equally sharp tone.

"Dude. Chill." Jonah completed their little triangle in the hall. "Let's give it a shot. Besides even if we do get caught we can blame it on her. There's no way they're gonna punish the girl who can't remember her own name."

Tala pinched his arm.

Lorcán chuckled. "You might be right."


	4. Big Breakfast

**Summary:** An innocent conversation goes horribly wrong.

 **a/n:** Another character development fiction for my SR RPG OC.

 **Big Breakfast**

Tala reached for an apple, which she dropped right into her pocket in case she wanted a snack later.

"Hope you slept well."

Tala's lips pulled into soft grin. With a plate in hand, Lorcán circled back.

"And sleeping on your desk totally doesn't count?" he insisted.

That made her laugh. "Guess that means you're cat walking today, too," she replied.

He just shrugged up one shoulder, like he was sly. They perused the buffet in silence, filling their plates.

"So, have you seen Billy in action yet?" he asked as he sat at a table, planting his elbows on the surface.

"Not beyond chasing flying turtles in the corridors."

Lorcán laughed. "You're in for a treat. And you might not want to eat a big breakfast."

Tala froze, spoon of oatmeal halfway to her lips. "Why?"

He finished chewing his bite of toast before explaining. "Well, you know the way he crunches turtle shells?" She nodded. "Bones are about ten times worse."

Tala felt her stomach churn wrong and the saliva pooled in the back of her throat. The smug little grin he wore did nothing to alleviate it. She pushed her bowl aside and tried to calm her stomach.

"C'mon. I'm joking," he said, chuckling. His hand brushed hers as he reached to push the bowl back toward her.

"Joking about what?" Jonah asked as he fell into the chair next to his friend.

"Billy."

"Oh, first time huh?"

Tala just nodded, not trusting her voice.

"Well, they say breathe through your mouth, but I think that makes it worse."

That weird tingle in the back of her throat intensified. Tala shot to her feet and walked as calmly as she could manage to the door. Once in the hall, however, she broke into a run almost falling through the bathroom door in effort not to vomit in a public space, not that the bathroom afforded much more privacy.


	5. Entry 01: That First Night

**Summary:** Tala's first night with the Third Unit is a trial in more ways than one. Frustration at her technology restriction prods a childish reaction. A suffocating nightmare pushes another deeper button.

 **a/n:** Just a note here for clarification. Tala is suffering from a type of amnesia, most easily described as source amnesia, the cause of which is unknown. It affects her specific memories, but not her abilities. She knows how to do the things she knew before the abduction, but has no memory of the things that happened before she was fished out of the tank.

Also, this piece is making the assumption that they have a moment to sleep and/or collect themselves at the point where the game ended on 2016.11.13.

 **Entry 01: That First Night**

After her exploration with the phone, Tala was reduced for scrounging for paper and a pen. _How archaic!_ she thought as she plopped down in the chair in her room. A quick once-over of the space told her, there wasn't much she'd be able to do in here. The little eyeball at the ceiling was both telling and disconcerting. While she knew she couldn't reach it, she wondered if she might be able to combat the surveillance in other ways.

Pulling the blanket off the bed, she pulled it around herself and made a very poofy hood and cape, then retook her seat. Huddled over the paper she'd found, leaving a scant crack between the fabric and the surface of the desk to allow some light in, she scrawled notes.

It started with a diagram and short hand of the hack she attempted earlier. As she stared at that, trying to find her mistake, she absently doodled what looked like an almost scale replica of the wrist unit she'd seen Ginny wearing. She wanted one of those—almost badly enough to play along.

Then her growing frustration spilled out onto the same page.

 _So, I think I hate this place._

 _Not allowed to use my phone unsupervised._

 _Why_ _'d they give me one if they didn't expect me to use it?_

 _What kind of nonsense is that?_

 _They said they have files on us all. Know our capabilities. They should have expected it._

 _Instead, they grounded me. The nerve._

 _Must_ _'ve gotten closer than I thought. Guess I scared that Matt guy. Serves him right._

 _As if he thinks supervision will stop me._

 _Can_ _'t help wondering if those robots are connected to the system. Wonder what kind of security measures they have?_

 _Seems like only the showers are private, but I_ _'m not sure I could lure one into the loo to find out what makes it tick. Which might just require destroying it in the process. That would be no help._

 _I really want to see what kind of data is in those orb things. Those most certainly have some kind of access to something useful, something usable. Something that can tell me what_ _'s going on._

Folding up the paper, the hooded geek looked for a place to stash it. Given the eye in the ceiling, the grounding, and the state of her bricked phone, Tala doubted anything stashed in her room would stay secret. This place felt familiar somehow—lots of people, someone always watching. So, she decided the only safe place was on her person and slipped the page in her sock.

Not dislodging the blanket, she flopped onto the bed on her stomach, curling up under the blanket, like a hermit crab retreating into its shell.

Her mind raced as she tried to fall asleep. Gone were the rants from earlier. Now, her thoughts focused on the abstracts of code, the code she'd written earlier and that which she'd seen. It ran in circles around her head as she tried to fall asleep. Oddly, that seemed to relax her more than anything else—for a time.

A few hours later, Tala startled awake, her blanket shell tied around her so tightly that she was kicking at it trying to get it off. She gasped for air like she'd been drowning, at least that's what it felt like. Sitting there, she stared at the dark room bathed in a soft glow.

"2016," she whispered. _That_ _'s what that angry chick had said, right?_ "So, if their numbers are right that means it's like 2022."

Then Claire's voice tiptoed through her head, whispering the phrase, "Memory loss." Then that other woman's, "We haven't seen this before."

"Fuck you," Tala mumbled in reply, kicking at her blanket again. "I can remember things."

She had parents, family, friends—even if when she thought of "mom" or "dad" no face came to mind, nor did names beyond her own. Her cheeks stung a little and she tried to remember home. Tala struggled to pull up an image of it in her head but what came to mind were simply flashes—a white wooden rocking chair, a glass table, a fireplace with with colorfully painted tiles.

Shaking her head, she grasped onto the fact that remembered how to code—obviously. Closing her eyes, she tried to find comfort in that fact. Her fingers tapped lightly over her thigh, almost as if typing.

"This has to be some kind of trick. Some kind of game." She could hear the tiny cracks in her own voice, which just made her angrier. With impotent rage, she jumped off the bed and stared at the eye. "What's really going on here?"

She stormed into the bathroom and slid down the wall. Swallowing her sobs came naturally, even in a room of hard surfaces that should reflect every sound, Tala managed to keep her outburst nearly silent save for a few gasping breaths. Eventually, she calmed down enough for reason to creep back in.

 _A shower_ , she thought, _a shower will help_. "Maybe a hot shower and I'll be able to get back to sleep."

With the water started, the room steamed up quickly. She unzipped the jumpsuit they gave her; after setting it and the rest of the clothing on the counter, she ducked right under the water. She didn't want to think about the situation, or any of the rest of it for a little while. She screwed her eyes shut and tried not to lose her balance in the water. Her eyes only opened to find the soap, then quickly closed again. She'd managed to ignore the faded marks on her knuckles all night, either by keeping her hands in her pockets, under the table, or by just outright refusing to think about it.

Again, she thought she could will those things out of her mind. But when her fingers scraped over the skin beneath her clavicle, that changed. She glanced down at her chest, a series of raised scars, dots, still shone pink against her darker skin. Almost slipping once, she rushed to the mirror and swiped a soapy hand over the surface to see the marks more clearly. Convinced it had to be proof of some kind of experiment, Tala rushed through the door dripping and soapy.

She gestured angrily at the camera, pointing at the marks. "What the fuck did you do to me?" she yelled at the top of her voice. She threw the bar of soap at the eye before storming back into the bathroom.

This time, the water of the shower hid the tears, though the steady patter couldn't camouflage the body-wracking sobs. Her imagination ran off with her. How long had they been experimenting on her? What kind of experiments?

 _Obviously, superhuman speed had not been part of it_ , she realized with a laugh, recalling the debacle with the tentacle beast … Freddy.

She sat under the water and stared at her wrist, at the grid of ones and zeros. It took her a moment, but she could read it: "I know more than you." It made her laugh. The smile that prompted faded quickly as her thumb rubbed over it.

"Why did they do this to me?" she asked quietly running her hand up her left arm, which was covered in a field of faded blues and purples. Smoky clouds and swirls were just barely visible, though other details seemed lost. Even faded as it was, it felt almost familiar, comforting.

Dropping her hands into the shallow puddle in the bottom of the shower, she turned her face upward letting the hot water beat over her face. _How did I get here?_

That was the question she kept coming back to. She got the gist of why she was there. They needed to get something done, and Tala, despite her trouble making streak, possessed skills that could help with that. No surprise there. With all the tech on this ship, it seemed natural that they would awaken someone like her. _Maybe it_ _'s just some ploy._

She huffed from under the water. "It couldn't be true. I sounded made up. Aliens. Earth destroyed," she muttered as she dropped her chin again and pushed the water out of her eyes. "It can't be real. It's just some scheme, isn't it? Has to be. We need you to bring humanity back from the brink. Yeah, right."

Leaning her chin on her knee, Tala embraced her legs tightly. "What choice is there? You play their game, or you go back in the goo. Or maybe that's just the story. The truth is they could just kill me. I mean why bother actually putting me back in the tank?" Tala didn't want to think about it, but the decision is easy. "Not much of a choice really," she muttered to herself.

The pressure weighing on her felt … she felt like she knew it, or something like it. There seemed no other choice but to go through with it. These people didn't seem so horrible.

She started thinking about it more. About the others. Bridget seemed a little angry. The others were more quiet, though just as confused as she was. Though she wasn't sure what to make of Adam. It must be awkward for him, being surrounded by humans. For a moment, she wondered if he truly was an alien; he'd gone above and beyond by gnawing on that fish head. Tala shivered with the memory.

This whole place seemed … odd, contrived. There were no windows, or so she'd seen so far, so this could just be a big warehouse in a desert for all she knew. _Ooh, or maybe a subterranean one._ She couldn't help but wonder what they were really doing, what the real targets of all this were.

 _Whatever or whoever it is, this can_ _'t be on the up and up._ Her lips pursed as she wondered if she'd be able to get through all this. _What about her family? Would they care? What if they think I_ _'m dead?_

At the thought, her eyes started to sting again. With a loud sniff, she tried to shake it off. This was all wrong. None of this could be real. She hung onto that thought for a long time until she turned off the water.

Drying herself, it felt so strange—her body. It wasn't her body and not just because of the tattoos or the marks. Swiping the mirror again, she studied the reflection. Turning from one side to the other, she discovered another huge tattoo. Her gaze moved over the subtle curves of her body; she didn't recognize any of it. Not one inch, except her eyes. Those seemed a familiar shade of almost aquatic jade.

Pulling the towel around herself, she stared in the mirror, willing herself to remember the person reflected there. But even focusing solely on her eyes, nothing came to her. Nothing.


	6. It Came for Popsicles

**Summary:** Tala has a bit of a sweet tooth and goes in search of one of her favorite things.

 **a/n:** Inspired by a prompt for Tala Darzi.

 **It Came for Popsicles**

The hinges of the bedroom door screeched like a banshee's wail announcing the arrival of a small dark creature with a large hood pulled forward to all but consume its face. Only vibrantly colored feet broke up the field of black as it padded through the common areas to the kitchen. Opening the freezer door, the entity stood there, stock still, as if siphoning off the cold air. In reality, keen eyes skimmed the labels of packages offering up frozen treats.

"Ah, ha!" The triumphant utterance contained all the excitement of a yell at the volume of a mumble.

Small hands appeared from the shapeless, cloak-like hoodie and dove into the billowing mist that poured from the freezer. Kicking the door closed behind it, the creature hunched its shoulders forward, its entire body seeming to bend and surround the hands clutching a shiny prize. The white plastic gave some trouble, but eventually relinquished the full-sized Fudgesicle. The wrapper landed in the rubbish receptacle before the frozen treat too disappeared beneath the vast shadow of the low swept hood. A pleased hum escaped the darkness.

To the tune of quiet noises of pleasure and the occasional lick the dark specter returned from whence if came, another nerve-grating shriek signaling its retreat.


End file.
